Sleepwalking to Armageddon: The Threat of Nuclear Annihilation

These short, concise essays assembled by Caldicott (If You Love This Planet: A Plan to Save the Earth), a longtime antinuclear campaigner, seek to renew public awareness, in an era preoccupied with global warming, of the looming threat posed by nuclear weapons. The authors, who include scientists, academics, and activists, share their well-informed and frequently fascinating perspectives on various issues in play. These include the environmental impact of nuclear-fuel disposal, the increased risk of hostilities in a period of political uncertainty, the “militarization of everything around us” in a nuclear-armed society, and the prospect of control being ceded to artificial intelligence. They also include the disastrous environmental consequences of even “limited” nuclear warfare. As physicist Max Tegmark puts it in his contribution, the Cold War doctrine of mutually assured destruction should now be renamed self-assured destruction, as recent models have confirmed that the trigger to nuclear winter was originally underestimated: any single nation’s use of nuclear weapons would have a dire effect on the planet’s atmosphere and weather patterns. Given the scope of the threat addressed, this succinct collection should be a must-read for government officials, policy makers, activists, and concerned citizens everywhere. (Nov.)